


Pink Shoes in the Rain

by Mertiya



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Bombs, Canon Non-Binary Character, Catra (She-Ra) Redemption, DT is their usual trashy self, DT takes genre-savviness to a new level, F/F, Glimmer has PTSD, Gun Violence, If you're not wearing pants it's supposed to be a comedy isn't it, Oral Sex, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:14:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22279987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mertiya/pseuds/Mertiya
Summary: Glimmer's mom died last week.  Now she's struggling to handle the expectations placed on her at the funeral, and things get out of hand rather quickly.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra), Double Trouble/Glimmer (She-Ra), Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 53





	Pink Shoes in the Rain

**Author's Note:**

> with thanks to vez for the title & for listening to my excerpts & to zomb & dulaku for letting me scream at them

Glimmer stared down at her sparkly, brightly-colored shoes, the one defiance she’d really bothered to go through with today. Otherwise, she had submitted to squeezing herself into the sheer black dress Ms. Spinner had not-so-delicately suggested. She almost liked that it was too tight; the squeezing feeling made her seem present in her body, when all of the rest of her seemed ready to float out and float away.

There was a little train of weeping mourners behind the casket. Glimmer suspected Ms. Spinner had hired them. So much easier to find actors than to deal with the stubbornness of the little heiress who refused to shed a tear. It didn’t matter that Glimmer _couldn’t_ , that it hurt so much in her throat that she couldn’t cry; all that mattered was that it wouldn’t look good for the public image. Already there had been some ugliness in the tabloids when Glimmer refused to do any press interviews. But why she should talk to someone she didn’t even know? She wasn’t even talking to her best friend.

She knew Adora had tried her best. She knew she shouldn’t hold it against her. But there was still that hole in her heart. The moment she’d woken up in the middle of the night to hear all the frantic rushing around, and she’d opened her bedroom door, and Adora had been standing there, bleeding from a head wound, talking rapidly into her walkie-talkie. Drenched from the rain.

It hurt that she’d survived, and it hurt that it hurt. Glimmer stared harder at her shoes as the priest that Ms. Spinner had probably hired from some agency droned on about all of her mother’s virtues. How she had been ‘selfless to the last’ and stayed behind so the rest of the hostages could get free before the building—

_It wasn’t selfless_ , Glimmer thought fiercely. Her throat hurt. _If she’d been selfless, she would have cared what happened to me._

Cameras flashed. So many cameras. Glimmer kept her head down, refusing to look up. She wasn’t going to give them what they wanted. The mourners cried so loudly it made her head hurt. She wanted Bow. She wanted Adora. She wanted _her mother_. But she was never going to see her again.

Abruptly, it was too much, all of it. She turned and started pushing her way through the crowd. She heard several voices hissing her name, but she wasn’t going to listen. Who cared what the papers said? She needed to get out of here. But there wasn’t anywhere to _go_ , was there?

She made it to the crowd of mourners and stopped, because at the gate was Adora, standing by the other bodyguards in her black suit, looking up with a worried expression on her face. And to the left was Bow, and just outside the cemetery gate, there was a group of eager-looking paparazzi. Glimmer cast a glance back over her shoulder, which was enough to tell her that Ms. Spinner was already hurrying grimly in her direction. What was she going to do?

“Problem?” murmured one of the mourners. They all looked identical, somehow, all of them vapid-looking blonds with large, watery blue eyes, wearing the same boring black suit. One or two of them wore hats, which was by far the most distinguishing feature.

Glimmer glared. “Yeah, my mom’s dead,” she snapped. “And this is a total _farce_.”

The blue eyes of the nearest mourner blinked at her sideways. Shapeshifters. Spinner had hired _shapeshifters_. Glimmer felt hot rage boiling up. She couldn’t even find a group of distant relatives, she’d just gone and found the first people who could be made to look like they belonged. “How much is she paying you?” she demanded in a low voice, expecting an argument. Half hoping for an argument.

What she got was a small smirk. “Ten dollars an hour.”

“I can outbid that,” Glimmer said, in a low voice. “Hell. I’ll double it. If you can get me out of here without anyone knowing where I’ve gone.”

Blink-blink. “It’s a deal, darling.” The shapeshifter took off their hat and popped it onto Glimmer’s head, tucking her fluffy hair beneath it. “Take off your shoes,” they instructed her, and Glimmer, after one agonized moment, obeyed them. “Funerals are so _easy_ ,” murmured the shapeshifter. They glanced around, then bent down and unlaced their own shoes, pushing them over to her and taking hers.

Glimmer grabbed their arm. “You have to be careful with them,” she said in a low voice. “Promise.”

“They’re important? Thank you for letting me know. I’ll be careful.” They patted her head, and she slipped into the shoes they’d given her. A little big, but nothing too bad. Then she looked back up and, with a strange frisson of shock running down her spine, found herself looking into her own eyes, hovering in her own plump face.

Her own face gave her a thin, un-Glimmer-ish grin. “Get out of here, darling,” said the shapeshifter. “I’ll come find you in a bit. I don’t think anyone’s in the church right now.”

“Glimmer!” Ms. Spinner shoved her way through the other mourners and put her hand on the shapeshifter’s arm. Glimmer ducked her head, making sure her face was hidden underneath the hat and carefully backed away. “What do you think you’re _doing_?”

“I just needed a minute,” not-Glimmer retorted, in a good imitation of Glimmer’s voice. They already had Glimmer’s sulkiest cadence down perfectly, and did she _really_ sound that petulant?

No one stopped her this time. No one even gave her a second glance. All eyes were on Ms. Spinner and what they thought was the Bright Moon heiress being steered back to the front of the funeral like a recalcitrant child. Glimmer slipped right past Adora and the other bodyguards with a manic, floating feeling in her chest. It was so easy when everyone wasn’t looking at her. It was stupidly easy.

The balloon feeling in her chest lasted long enough for her to reach the deserted church on the hill. Spinner had probably chosen it because the outside of it was charming and photogenic, but the inside was dusty, apparently unused. The pews had been stacked up along one wall. Glimmer wasn’t a very religious person, but she still usually got a feeling of peace from religious places. In here, there was nothing. It was like being in someone’s attic.

Well—it wasn’t as if she needed to stay. She’d gotten away. She could go wherever she wanted. She took a step backward, and that was when she heard the roll of thunder above her.

~

Wow. No wonder Glimmer was desperate to get away. Double Trouble lived with a troupe of actors, which meant they were totally used to histrionics, dramatic tantrums, and the occasional attempted backstabbing—usually, if not always, of the metaphorical variety. But the way the rail-thin Ms. Spinner was eying them right now—was eying the whole funeral—set Double Trouble’s hackles rising and tingling. Perfect “Princess” Glimmer, with her perfect life, and her perfect friends—what a delicately constructed image that must be. _Poor little rich girl_ , Double Trouble thought, only half-ironically, as Ms. Spinner steered them towards the front of the crowd, her bony hand on Double Trouble’s shoulder nearly tight enough to bruise. What a bitch.

They reached the front, where the priest was still droning on, and Double Trouble hunched their shoulders and stared down at their shoes, just like Glimmer had done. No tears. An interesting choice, although it made things significantly easier for Double Trouble. The last thing they needed was to burst into a giggling fit before people had stopped paying attention to them again.

~

“Hey, Adora.” Warm breath on her ear.

Adora reached for her gun, turning immediately. “ _Catra_.” The next moment she had her erstwhile friend up against the high stone wall on the west side of the cemetery. Catra put her hands into the air, giving Adora a rueful half-smile.

“Hey, hey, hey. I’m not here to cause trouble.”

“You’re not here to—” A muscle twitched in Adora’s neck. “You murdered Glimmer’s _mom_!”

“I didn’t—”

“Your organization did!” Part of Adora actually wanted to take the safety off her gun. Bad idea. Her hand was trembling way too much. Not safe, in the crowded churchyard. Now, if they’d been alone—but she stopped her thought there. Catra’s body language was off. Her tail was drooping a little, and she wasn’t showing her teeth. What was going on?

“Adora, you need to listen to me,” Catra said, almost sounding pleading. “Look, I know we’ve both fucked each other over like seven ways from Sunday, but you’re in danger.”

“No _shit_ ,” Adora hissed, a muddle of pained emotions rising in her chest that she wasn’t sure she’d ever felt before. “ _You’re_ here. What are you planning?” She shook Catra like a rag doll. “Are you going to try to kidnap Glimmer next? _Kill_ her?”

“Have you heard _anything_ from the Horde in the last six months?” Catra demanded. “No? That’s cuz Hordak finally got it through his thick head that his brother wasn’t ever going to give a _shit_ about him. He, like—made us do _therapy_ and some shit. The Horde’s disbanded. It’s gone.”

Adora stared. “You’re lying,” she said coolly. “Hordak would never—”

“Well, he _did_!” spat Catra. “So guess what, genius, it can’t have been us who pulled that thing with your perfect girlfriend’s _mom_ —”

“She’s not my girlfriend!”

They stared at each other, breathing hard. Adora caught her gaze sliding down from Catra’s angry face to her chest, heaving underneath her black suit jacket. She’d always looked amazing in a suit. Fuck. Adora set Catra down carefully, automatically straightening her tie.

“If you put so much as a _toe_ out of line, I will shoot you in the head,” she said. Catra just smiled, bitter and crooked.

“Didn’t think you could be so intimidating, Adora.”

“My best friend’s mom was kidnapped and murdered on _my watch_ , Catra.”

Catra’s tail lashed once, twice. “Yeah, I know,” she said quietly. “But you need to listen to me. Hordak hit the roof when he heard about it, okay? He kinda liked Angella. And it’s totally fucked up the power balance in the city.”

“Let’s assume I don’t care about the power balance in the city,” Adora said, impressed with herself from keeping her voice from wobbling.

“Do you care that someone’s probably gonna try to kill your perf—your best friend?”

“What?”

Catra swiped her thumb across her bottom lip and then counted on her fingers. “Word on the street is someone ordered a couple bombs from Hordak’s girlfriend, which she made because she never asks questions when she has a cool problem to work on, one of those bombs exploded last week and killed Lady Angella of the Bright Moon estate as well as three of her bodyguards—” Catra paused and her eyes flickered to Adora. She crossed her arms. “We didn’t know who died for a while,” she said bluntly. “I kind of punched a wall.”

Adora wasn’t going to touch that one with a barge pole. “Okay. Go on.”

“And then somehow it got out that Hordak was behind the ransom demand. Except when the ransom demand went out he was in his safe room, which doesn’t have any outgoing internet or phone lines or anything.”

“Why would he—”

Catra’s fur bristled slightly in a way that Adora recognized as embarrassment. “Uh. Entrapta gets distracted easily. Uh. Seriously. They were not putting out ransom demands. I was on guard with Lonnie.”

“Let’s assume for now that I believe you,” Adora said tightly. “So you’re saying there was a plot to kill Angella and pin it on the Horde. What does that have to do with Glimmer?”

“What that has to do with _Glimmer_ ,” Catra said tightly, “Is that so far only _one_ bomb has gone off.”

~

Damn. Everyone was playing an awful lot of attention to the person they thought was Glimmer. Getting paid for this was fine, but Double Trouble was bored, and they wanted to meet Glimmer the way they’d said they would. But they couldn’t exactly shift in full sight of everyone either. They needed a distraction. They needed an out.

They were considering whether tears might be the answer—it meant breaking from the part ever-so-slightly, but it might be worth it. They hated to compromise their portrayal, but they simply didn’t want to be here any longer.

Fortunately, before they had to actually sully themself, there was a sudden stillness in the air, followed by a lightning bolt that earthed itself a few blocks away with blinding suddenness. Double Trouble took the opportunity to fade behind the nearest person and shift back into their mourner persona, smiling to themself as they toed off Glimmer’s bright shoes and tucked them under an arm, where no one could see them. Bare feet might be odd, but who would be looking?

It hadn’t started to rain by the time they made it up the hill to the church, but a glance back told them that there was a little bit of entertaining confusion at the ceremony. It almost made them want to turn back, but they’d been at plenty of messed-up funerals. Whereas the heiress who wasn’t crying at her mother’s funeral was much more unusual.

They opened the door of the church just as another bolt of lightning struck somewhere quite nearby, the huge peel of thunder following almost instantaneously. Thrilling. Double Trouble wriggled their toes with pleasure. What an entrance.

There was a soft gasp from somewhere deep in the church, and Double Trouble headed towards it. They found, in the light of the next flash, that the little heiress had managed to drag one of the pews down from the wall and had somehow stuffed herself beneath it. Double Trouble bent down in amusement to find that Glimmer had her eyes shut and her hands over her ears. She looked utterly terrified; the next crash of thunder drew a tiny squeak from her lips and a shiver down her form.

Double Trouble’s ears went back in surprise. “Princess?” they said, but Glimmer didn’t hear them, so they squatted beside her and shook her shoulder. The resulting explosion nearly gave them a black eye and did end up with them sitting on the floor in surprise. “It’s just me, darling,” they said, and Glimmer blinked out at them with her little fists still squared up, even though she was still squashed beneath the pew.

“Who? Oh…you’re the shapeshifter, aren’t you?”

Double Trouble flicked their hair dramatically behind them. “Double Trouble, in the flesh, darling. And you’re either ‘Princess’ Glimmer or as good an actor as I am.”

“Queen,” Glimmer said, her voice sounding cold and remote. “If we’re being logical about that nonsensical newspaper title, I would now be the quee— _nk!_ ” Another bolt of lightning and rumble of thunder struck, sending her from dignified to another shivering heap. It was a marvelously nuanced portrayal, and Double Trouble’s thus far had been rather one-note, so they popped their head underneath the pew as well and put a slim hand carefully in her hair.

“Well, Queen Glimmer,” they said. “Do you need a faithful servant to protect you?” Then they moved their hands down from her hair onto her ears, shifting them a little to make them a bit more soundproofed. Glimmer blinked up at them with surprise.

“I don’t need anyone to protect me,” she said hotly after a moment, but she put her hands on Double Trouble’s and took a deep, shivering breath as her shoulders relaxed a little.

Of course, they had to pull their hands away from her ears to respond. “Surely you have a retinue of protectors, darling,” they said, shifting into the form of that blond-haired bodyguard who’d glared so hard at everyone who entered the cemetery. Glimmer’s face went still.

“No,” she said, her voice ringing out as the thunder ebbed. “I won’t rely on anyone else. That’s what got my mother killed.” Her voice cracked on the last two words. Double Trouble blinked their nictating membranes at her.

“I rather think that was the bomb,” they said dryly, and Glimmer sputtered and then went still again.

“How can you make a joke out of this?” she demanded, and Double Trouble flattened themself along the ground, propping their head on their hands and kicking their feet.

“I could tell you that I’m sorry, but since I didn’t know your mother at all, I think you’d see right through that lie, love.”

Glimmer’s mouth gaped open in outrage, and she puffed up in a way that reminded Double Trouble of a small, angry bird fluffing out its feathers. Then the anger seemed to drain a little. “I…” she said. “No, you’re right. It would be pretty fake.” Thunder rumbled again, a little further away; she flinched, but rolled out from under the pew and pulled her knees into her chest.

“No one cares how I feel,” she said in a small voice. “I’m supposed to wear all black because that’s the thing you’re supposed to do. I wanted to wear something Mom would like, but all I got away with was the shoes. She gave them to me for my eighteenth birthday.”

“Ah, I took good care of them!” Double Trouble pulled them out with a flourish and handed them back to her. “Here you are, Your Majesty.”

A slight smile fluttered onto Glimmer’s face. “I’m not—okay, thank you.” She scooted forward, and then, to Double Trouble’s surprise, rested her head gingerly on their shoulder. “I need to make up with Adora and Bow,” she said softly. “But I just don’t think I can go back out there until it’s all over.”

“Pay me and I’ll go back out for you,” Double Trouble suggested with a smirk. “I think I’ve seen enough to put together a passable impression of you for longer than last time.”

“I’d rather pay you to stay in here with me,” Glimmer said moodily, kicking at the floor. “I hate thunder, and I don’t want to be alone.”

Before Double Trouble could respond, another lightning bolt struck close by, and Glimmer shrieked and dove forward, throwing her arms around them. It was so unexpected that she knocked them right over, and suddenly they were lying on their back underneath a surprisingly pleasant armful of small, soft woman.

Glimmer buried her face in Double Trouble’s neck as they thunder reverberated, trembling. Double Trouble put an arm around her and patted her fluffy hair. And then the thunder faded, and Glimmer sat up, her knees falling on either side of Double Trouble’s waist, her black dress bunching up around her thighs, her hair falling around her heart-shaped face. Double Trouble blinked their nictating membranes, and Glimmer looked down at herself and flushed slowly.

~

Catra’s tail felt familiar around Adora’s wrist. Too familiar. She couldn’t get too comfortable, she reminded herself. There was every chance Catra was trying to pull another one of her cons. For all she knew, she could actually be putting Glimmer in more danger. But if Catra was telling the truth—she had to check it out.

Catra dragged her to the back of the ceremony, where a long table covered in black crepe was laid with refreshments. Although no one was supposed to be eating them now, there was a short form in a black suit and a tiny top hat sweeping hors d’oeuvres onto a paper plate. “Entrapta, come on! You’re supposed to be finding that bomb,” Catra hissed angrily.

“Oops!” Two long purple pigtails swung guiltily around as the woman turned. “I just got very excited by the tiny food!”

Adora crossed her arms over her chest. “I still don’t know if I believe you,” she said guardedly. “Why would someone want to kill Glimmer?”

“Gee, I dunno, maybe the Bright Moon runestone, genius,” Catra snapped, reaching out to grab Entrapta’s shoulder and steer her back away from the food. “Come on, you can have tiny food later, now where the hell has Scorpia got to?”

Entrapta shrugged happily, pulling a blinking device out of her pocket and frowning down at it. “Yup, locator’s got a hit!” she said excitedly. “It’s definitely here somewhere.”

“Where is ‘somewhere’?”

Frown. “Not sure,” Entrapta replied. “I think something’s damaged the original chip. It’s not transmitting properly anymore.”

“Oh, _great_.” Catra ran a frustrated hand through her hair. She certainly seemed to be genuine about this, Adora had to admit. Catra could act, but this wasn’t usually _how_ she acted when she was acting. And there were none of the little tells Adora had gotten used to that let her know when Catra was lying. “So to recap: there’s a bomb somewhere around here, but we don’t know where, it could go off any minute, there’s a brewing thunderstorm, and Scorpia has up and—”

“Oh, I see her!”

“See what?” Catra snapped, clearly derailed from her rant. If the situation hadn’t been so serious, Adora would have laughed at the way fur puffed up all around Catra’s tail.

“Scorpia! She’s over there in that alcove with another girl.”

“She’s… _what_? Oh, my god.” Clearly agitated, Catra started to drag Adora in the direction Entrapta indicated, then stopped, taking a deep breath. “Entrapta, _can_ you figure out where it is?”

“Probably!” Entrapta said. “I’ll start doing a sweep of the area. If I get close enough, the locator should be able to home in.”

“Do that,” Catra said grimly. “I’m gonna go get Scorpia back—”

“Wait,” Adora said. “You still haven’t explained this thing about the runestone. I thought the runestone was gone.” The Bright Moon runestone was a legendary artifact, supposedly able to awaken magical powers in people with the right kind of elemental affinity, but as far as Adora knew, it had been missing for generations.

“Walk and talk,” Catra said grimly. “Yeah. Okay. So the thing is, word on the street is that the reason the runestone went missing was because people kept trying to steal it, so the ladies of Bright Moon just decided to hide it somewhere. You know how every generation has really fucking top-tier magic powers? Well, supposedly it’s because they still actually have the runestone.”

“Glimmer doesn’t have any magic, though,” Adora said doubtfully as she trailed after Catra towards Scorpia, casting a look back at Entrapta. Fortunately, the woman was not heading right back to the food table but was actually frowning down at her locator and starting to head into the crowd of people. Thank god everyone at a funeral was totally oblivious all the time.

Catra shrugged. “Maybe Mommy Dearest didn’t trust her,” she said cynically. “Either way, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that people _think_ the runestone exists. Get rid of Angella and Glimmer and now suddenly someone can get close to the estate and search for the damn thing.”

Adora had to admit, it made sense. And if Catra was looking for the runestone herself, she wouldn’t need to go to all this trouble, would she? She wouldn’t need to have warned Adora at all. It was really beginning to look like Catra was trying to help. And with the growing confidence in her old friend, Adora’s concern for Glimmer was rising as well.

“I’m going to get Glimmer,” she said firmly. “You get Scorpia. I’ll meet you back here.”

Catra’s tail twisted nervously around her wrist. “…yeah,” she mumbled. “Okay. Adora—”

Adora paused and looked back. “What is it?”

“Um, be careful,” Catra said at the ground, and Adora had to take a breath against the tears that were suddenly pricking at her eyes.

“Yeah,” she said. “Sure.”

Glimmer was standing near the front of the crowd of people, staring down at her shoes. Adora took a deep breath and began to shoulder her way forward, but before she could get more than a few feet forward, there was a brilliant flash of lightning and a crash of thunder. Glimmer disappeared behind somebody else—and, to Adora’s mounting panic, didn’t reappear. Where was she? She couldn’t have just _vanished_ , could she?

She wasn’t the only person who was concerned. Ms. Spinner was turning around in a confused circle and a moment later Adora’s radio crackled to life. “She-Ra, come in,” Spinner’s voice said crisply.

“She-Ra here. Over.”

“Where’s Glimmer? Have you seen her?”

“She was just—I _just_ saw her,” Adora said in frustration. “I don’t know how she disappeared.”

“I’m worried about her. We need to find her.” Ms. Spinner turned in another frustrated circle. “All right. Call in everyone. Ask if anyone has seen her.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Adora tried to calm the twisting knot in her stomach, but it didn’t seem to want to be calmed.

~

“Ah— _ah_ — _god_ —”

Double Trouble smirked and the motion of their mouth made Glimmer whimper and squirm above them even more. She was splayed back on top of the pew, legs spread, her tight black dress bunched around her waist. Double Trouble had their tongue just about as far inside her as they could get it, which was pretty far, given the length of said tongue. She tasted of sweetness and musk, and she was slick and hot and delightful on Double Trouble’s tongue.

They rubbed their thumbs across her inner thighs, and she made a whining, desperate noise; one hand fell onto Double Trouble’s head and then tightened in their hair, and that was an excellent move on Glimmer’s part, because it sent sensation twisting right through them, made their legs clench and their mouth move. And when their mouth moved, Glimmer moaned and wriggled again and tugged their hair some more, so that just about closed up _that_ feedback loop.

And Glimmer’s enthusiastic response also suggested their own performance was somewhat more than satisfactory, so that was also all right. Double Trouble pulled themself up so they could get a heel between their own legs and then went back to exploring Glimmer’s insides with their tongue, moving it in and out, and pausing midway through the motion to flick it thoughtfully across her clit. Glimmer squealed. “ _Oh_ —Double _Trouble_ —”

What a delicious sort of ovation. Not _standing_ , per se, but then Glimmer’s legs weren’t likely to be able to hold her up right now, so that wasn’t really saying much. They weren’t sure they were doing that much better themself, if they were being truthful. They rocked gently against their heel as Glimmer panted and squealed and writhed above them. It seemed Double Trouble was good enough to get her over her fear of thunder, since she hadn’t made a complaint since their tongue had slipped inside her, and there had been at least—at least three—or four—more—lightning—stri—kes—

Double Trouble rocked harder, rapidly blinking their nictating membranes as Glimmer’s muscles contracted around their tongue. She babbled out something completely incomprehensible, and dragged them forward so they were practically nose-deep inside her. Double Trouble whined breathlessly, and Glimmer yowled, thighs slamming together around their ears as she climaxed.

Double Trouble waited patiently for Glimmer’s muscles to relax, although they were aware they were making a low keening noise in their throat. After a moment, Glimmer peeled herself back, trembling and panting, her face flushed and her hair mussed, her eyes bright and round. She was distractingly lovely. Double Trouble fixed the whole appearance in their mind in case they were ever called upon to play her in such a situation. Then they sat back, tail lashing slightly.

“Come here,” Glimmer said, and didn’t she sound commanding. Double Trouble found they were blinking their nictating membranes again as they licked their lips and then got to their feet and skipped over to her side. There was another low rumble of thunder, but Glimmer barely flinched; instead she put an arm across Double Trouble’s chest and pulled them close as they sat beside her. “I…I um…” she said. “Can I help you out?”

“Oh,” Double Trouble said, draping themself across her front. “That would be just lovely of you, darling.”

~

It was just now sinking in that there was probably—or at least potentially—a _bomb_ in a huge crowd of people. Adora wiped sweat from her forehead. She couldn’t keep looking for Glimmer. They needed to evacuate the venue, and _then_ she could find Glimmer. Who was safe. Definitely. She _had_ to be safe. Adora had a damn _job_ to do.

She waited for one more minute, then shook her head and called in evacuation procedures to her team. Everything went a little crazy, which she’d known it would. As people started streaming towards the exit, Adora stood in the middle, trying to keep an eye on everything.

“What are you _doing_?” Catra, at her elbow again. Beside her was an embarrassed-looking Scorpia, holding hands with Glimmer’s friend Perfuma, of all people.

“Look, I have a job,” Adora said. “If there’s a bomb here, I have to protect everyone. Not just Glimmer.”

“And alert whoever’s behind this?” Catra demanded.

“I have a job,” Adora repeated, slightly hopelessly.

Ms. Spinner chose that moment to appear at her other elbow, and Catra, apparently alarmed, ducked out of sight with Scorpia. “What are you doing?” Spinner asked.

Adora pinched the bridge of her nose with her fingers. “I had someone report a possible bomb threat,” she said tightly. “So I’m making sure that—”

“Your job is to find Glimmer,” Spinner retorted.

“Yes, I am also working on that,” Adora said, keeping her voice calm and neutral with an effort.

At this point, one of the mourners popped their head up. “Excuse me,” they said. “Can you send someone to the church?”

“The church?” Adora repeated. “Why?”

“I think I saw Double Trouble headed that way earlier. They won’t know about the evacuation, and I know it’s farther away but—”

“I’ll get someone up there as soon as I can,” Adora said. “Just give me a minute to—”

She turned around to find that Spinner had vanished entirely while she was distracted. “Fuck’s sake,” she muttered. Catra popped her head back up. “I’m just saying—”

“FOUND IT!” yelled Entrapta’s voice, carrying over the rest of the crowd.

~

Double Trouble gasped, tail twitching, warmth flooding through them as Glimmer’s fingers moved deep inside them. They flopped sideways, panting, resting their head on Glimmer’s shoulder, and she made a soft noise. When they looked up, she was biting her lip shyly. “Was that okay?”

She did such a masterful adorable ingenue. Double Trouble chuckled. “Delightful, darling,” they purred, pressing themself against her side. They ran a hand down the inside of her thigh. “Would you like to try for a second—”

The door to the church slammed open. Glimmer squeaked, sitting up and frantically pulling down her dress. Double Trouble frowned. Their pants were on the ground, tangled up with their trousers and boxers.

“Glimmer, dear, are you in here?” Spinner’s voice. Double Trouble cursed under their breath. They had not been intending to play a comedy scene right now, and “pantsless” pretty much only worked in a comedy scene.

“Just a minute!” Glimmer called frantically, putting both hands on Double Trouble’s shoulders and pushing them to the floor. “Hide!” she hissed. “Oh my god, she’ll kill me.”

Lightning flashed, illuminating the woman in the doorway from the back. “Come here, Glimmer,” she said, her voice oddly flat. Double Trouble frowned. Something was off. Their dramatic sense was tingling, but without pants, what could you possibly do but a comedy of errors?

Glimmer stood up, frantically straightening her dress. “Wait,” Double Trouble said in a low voice.

“Glimmer. Come here _now_.” Wrong, wrong, wrong. Pantsless or not, this was not a comedy. If there was one thing they knew, it was theater, and this was taking a turn for the—unpleasant. Double Trouble might be better exiting stage left, but they were loathe to give up a starring role for the mere position of an overlooked extra.

Glimmer cast a concerned look down at them and then started down the aisle towards Spinner. Double Trouble looked up once more, swore, and reached out to grab Glimmer’s wrist and drag her down just as the first shot reverberated through the church. “Run,” Double Trouble told her, and took off.

“What—” Glimmer was slower. Slow on the uptake.

“She’s trying to kill you,” Double Trouble panted. “And, lucky me, I’m here too.” Bare feet, no pants. Hell of a scene to be doing. Another shot rang out, and they ground their teeth, then halted. Oh, of course. The door out of the back of the church was nailed shut. The only place left to go was the narrow spiral staircase that led to the belltower.

~

Adora shoved her way through, against the flow of the crowd, with Catra at her elbow, trying to reach Entrapta. The small woman was crouched beside the closed casket, bouncing excitedly on her heels, the locator in her hands blinking and emitting a loud chirruping noise.

“What—” Adora started.

“It’s in the casket!” Entrapta said excitedly. “Do you mind if I crack it open and take a look, I know people are sometimes kind of weird about that?”

The casket? Ms. Spinner had made all of the funeral arrangements…

Adora’s stomach clenched and she whirled around to stare at the church. “Do whatever you have to do,” she told Entrapta, and then she started to run.

~

“Get up the stairs,” Double Trouble said urgently. They really had not been banking on such an action hero role today. This was the kind of thing they preferred to be able to get in the mindset for. Of course, they didn’t think they’d ever had a role _this_ intense before, but it was the principle of the thing.

“You can’t get away!” called Ms. Spinner, her voice calm. Far too calm. If things played out the way they ought to, Glimmer and Double Trouble would be fine, of course. But—real life, Double Trouble thought distractedly, did not always go according to the proper theatrical formula. Their heart was beating terribly fast.

“Why are you _doing_ this?” Glimmer yelled back, in an appropriately desperate tone of voice, but Spinner didn’t respond. The stairs were desperately narrow, and Double Trouble was trying to climb them while pulling along a half-unresponsive Glimmer. Shock, probably. Sense of drama, possibly.

They went up and up until they burst out onto the flat top of the belltower. Although there was a secondary roof above them, there were no windows, nothing but the bell itself. The wind shrieked through, laden with rain; they were practically up in the boiling black clouds.

There was a tree not too far way, probably their best bet. “Darling—perhaps there?” They’d have to get down, clinging to the side of the belltower and standing precariously on a thin concrete ledge to have any hope of being able to reach out and get to it, but at least it was _there_.

“Why is she—” Glimmer sobbed, her face wet with tears or rain, it was impossible to tell which. “She was my mom’s secretary. Did she—”

“Almost certainly,” Double Trouble responded. “Can you wait until we’re on the ground before having your emotional breakdown?”

For an instant, Glimmer’s lip quivered; then it firmed up, and she nodded. “Sorry,” she said tightly. “You go first.”

“You’re the one she’s trying to kill,” Double Trouble pointed out. “Besides, you’re lighter.”

“Fine. Come on.” Glimmer sat on down, her legs dangling over the flat edge, and Double Trouble put their hands under her armpits and helped lower her, until she was just one good jump away from the tree. As long as she could make that, she might break a few bones, but she probably wouldn’t die.

And then someone grabbed Double Trouble’s arm and yanked them back, pressing the cold barrel of a gun to their temple.

~

Adora raced up the hill, just in time to see Glimmer’s small pink-haired figure appear on the belltower, her colorful shoes landing a moment later on a tiny ledge a few feet beneath. Someone Adora didn’t recognize was helping her down, hands securely on her back. They were wearing a black button-up shirt and apparently nothing else, their light blond hair streaming in the wind. There was someone behind them.

“Glimmer!” Adora screamed, but the storm carried her voice away. She watched in horror as Spinner grabbed Glimmer’s helper, pulling them back, a gun pressed to their temple.

~

Glimmer stared up at Ms. Spinner’s grim face. “I am no longer playing around, Glimmer,” she said. The gun was right up against Double Trouble’s temple, and while Glimmer couldn’t actually read the expression that was stamped across the shapeshifter’s face right now, she was pretty sure it was something in between terror and heart-stopping terror. “Come back here,” Ms. Spinner continued. “And I won’t shoot your friend in the head.”

“Really?” Glimmer asked, wondering where the words were coming from. “Like you didn’t kill my mom?”

Ms. Spinner responded with a cold smile. “I don’t think you’re really in a position to be demanding answers, Glimmer.”

“You’ll have to help me up,” Glimmer pointed out. “I’m pretty much stuck here.” She didn’t have a chance. She was going to die. And she was so, so angry about it. With a grunt, Spinner heaved Double Trouble to the side, reaching for Glimmer while she tried to keep the gun trained on the shapeshifter. But Glimmer looked up and saw the nictating membranes flick, saw Double Trouble’s eyes go sideways, so she was ready when they dropped heavily sideways, and she grabbed at Spinner’s arm. The gun went off with a terribly loud noise, and Glimmer heaved forward.

Spinner shrieked, overbalancing and falling forward. One hand whipped back as she went over the edge, scrabbling for purchase. Before Glimmer could react, Double Trouble was going over as well. She reached out desperately, but her fingers passed an inch too short of theirs. They were falling, instead of her.

_No_ , Glimmer thought. _I won’t let—_

~

Adora screamed Glimmer’s name again as Ms. Spinner fell from the belltower. Lightning flashed in continuous short bursts, the scene illuminated in bright, still frames. Spinner overbalancing. Spinner’s hand closing around the shapeshifter’s ankle. Them falling, overbalanced at the edge as well. Glimmer’s hand outstretched. Glimmer’s face, white with fear; Glimmer’s lips pressed together.

A bright flash that wasn’t lightning. That was the wrong color to be lightning. Glimmer was gone from the tower. Another bright flash. Glimmer and Double Trouble, three-quarters of the way down the tower, Glimmer’s arms around them. Flash. They were gone. Adora’s mouth gaped open, and then they appeared again, falling maybe six inches at the base of the tower. They struck the ground before Spinner did.

~

Double Trouble was on their back on the ground, their bare legs squishing into the mud, with Glimmer on top of them. They were not quite certain what had happened, but as it had involved dramatic sparkles and them not dying, they were reasonably pleased with it, all things considered.

“Are you all right?” Glimmer demanded breathlessly.

“Fine, love,” Double Trouble purred, although their heart was racing so rapidly it threatened to burst out of their chest.

“Oh, thank _goodness_!” Glimmer exclaimed, and then she kissed them, and then she burst into tears.

~

“Hey, Adora.”

Adora gave Catra a small, tired smile, running a hand through her hair. Across the road was an ambulance with all its lights on. In it, with the EMTs checking both of them over, were Glimmer and the shapeshifter from the church. Adora had about a million things she needed to say to Glimmer, but they could wait. For now, all that was important was that she was safe.

She looked exhausted and scared, one leg crossed over the other in a defensive posture, in an apparent attempt to make herself look as small as possible. Even as Adora watched, the shapeshifter—who had an orange emergency blanket over their bare legs—snaked their tail over and tapped Glimmer’s thigh. She looked over, startled, and to Adora’s surprise, she actually took the tail in her hand and held it, looking fierce and tender all at the same time. It was a little bit like—

Adora found that she had a fuzzy tail wrapping around her own wrist. Startled, she looked over at Catra, who was giving her a half-smug, half-pleading gaze. “Bomb didn’t even go off,” she said, as if Adora didn’t already know that. “Entrapta disarmed it.”

Sigh. Adora had walked away from Catra after it because obvious that the other girl wouldn’t—or couldn’t—change. And yet, here she was, post-therapy apparently, legitimately trying to save Glimmer’s life. Maybe a little reluctantly, but—didn’t that actually say _more_?

In lieu of handling the Big Scary Thing, Adora turned her palm up and rubbed Catra’s tail a little, and then said, “I don’t get how Glimmer managed to save—whoever that is.”

“That? Oh, that’s DT. They used to do odd jobs for the Horde every-so-often.” Catra looked over with a smirk. “And given that they’re not wearing pants, I’m pretty sure Glimmer and them were—”

“Yeah, okay, I got that,” Adora said hurriedly. “Wait, for the Horde? Are they…” she stalled out, realizing what she had been about to say wasn’t exactly diplomatic.

“A bad person?” Catra put in, only sounding a little bitter. “They seemed okay. They’ll fuck around with you but at the end of the day I don’t think they’d hurt someone.”

“Hm,” said Adora, making a mental note to vet them more carefully later. “But I don’t—it looked like she used magic, but Glimmer doesn’t _have_ magic.”

“She does if she’s got the runestone,” Catra pointed out. “And I bet you she does.”

“How could she? She’s barely wearing—um.” Adora blushed.

“She’s wearing a dress and her shoes,” smirked Catra. “So my money’s on the shoes.”

Adora frowned. “They were a present from her mom,” she said slowly. “I’d better make a note to get that checked out later.” She looked back at Catra. “Hey…” she said slowly. “I know—things haven’t always gone great between us.”

Catra looked away, but her tail stayed tight around Adora’s wrist. “I guess that might partly kind of be my fault,” she muttered.

Therapy was a hell of a drug. Adora swallowed. “Yeah,” she agreed. “But I don’t think I always know how to help, either, and I think sometimes I make it worse.”

“Oh, shut up.” Catra laughed and looked back at her. “I’m bad to the bone. It’s not you.”

“Catra—” She wanted to say how much she’d missed her, but she wasn’t sure she could. She didn’t know if there was anything left to salvage. So, instead, she shifted awkwardly and said, “After all this is over, do you maybe want to grab a cup of coffee?”

The tail tightened, and Catra made a low, rumbling noise in her throat, then seemed to catch herself and look away. “I mean. Sure. If you’d be okay with that.”

“It’s just a cup of coffee.”

“Yup.”

But a cup of coffee could maybe mean a new beginning. If they were both lucky. Adora looked over at the ambulance, where DT was now breathing in Glimmer’s ear, while the Bright Moon heiress blushed. It seemed like it was a good time for new beginnings.


End file.
